Conventional mobile communication device locator applications enable a user to request a target user's location. Depending on the application configuration, the target user may be different from or the same as the requesting user. A user may request his or her own location or the location of another. A user requests a location and the locator application initiates a chain of events that will ultimately return location information to the user, for example putting in a request to a telecommunication carrier application program interface (“API”) to triangulate the location of the targeted mobile communication device. The chain of events that ultimately returns location information to the user can take anywhere from seconds to minutes. This noticeable wait time can have a negative impact on the user experience.
Oftentimes, the act of requesting a location has consequences (referred to hereinafter as “request consequences”) which may be manifested in user-observable changes in the device user interface or application behaviors. Request consequences enabled by an application can include generating a history view showing location requests, generating billing events based on the location requests, notifying the target user of the location request for privacy reasons, and throttling the number of location requests allowed by a user. In each of these examples, the application takes some action in response to the location request, which action may or may not be desirable to a user initiating the location request.